5 Ways to Perfect Your Company’s Brand Story

5 Ways to Perfect Your Company’s Brand Story

We talk a lot about brands but less about brand stories and maybe that’s because people confuse the two elements. While they are related, a brand story is the essence of your company and at the core of everything you do and say about your brand. A compelling brand story:

Differentiates your company from the crowd

Humanizes the products and services you offer

Increases brand awareness

Encourages and reinforces customer loyalty

Boosts employee and customer engagement

Helps grow profits

A brand story is more than a captivating tagline, attractive logo colors, or the content on your website. It encompasses everything that characterizes your company’s intangible personal qualities. In the highly competitive healthcare marketplace, a compelling brand story is a marketing imperative.

Want to perfect your brand story? Here are five tips to help you get started.

Stay human—and make it about “them”

Your brand story shouldn’t be about what you ‘sell.’ It should highlight the human elements of your business—the personal stories of your customers or patients and the lives touched by your products and services. Weave human elements into business content to authenticate your message and connect to your audience on a more meaningful level. Doing this will transform otherwise dry, generic content into something more memorable and lasting for your audience.

Be authentic, genuine and truthful

Everything you say and do reflects your brand, so underpin your brand story with truth and candor. Use authentic customer anecdotes or experiences, accurate statistics and genuine emotions. Your company cannot grow to the next level if its story doesn’t ring true to others.

Highlight your originality

It’s no longer sufficient just to position yourself as the ‘best in your field.’ If you want customers and potential customers to remember you, they must like you, trust you and relate to you. As you develop your brand story, identify the characteristics that make your company truly unique.

Be consistent, don’t waver

Once you settle on your company’s brand story, stick to it. Consistency is powerful—it provides credibility, which is absolutely vital to building trust with your audiences. And in today’s digital environment, content lives forever, so craft your story with diligence and care.

Take ownership and be responsive

With social media platforms and 24/7 news coverage, companies are expected to respond to situations instantly, in real time. We have all seen the fallout when companies drag their feet or even ‘hide out’ when a potentially negative event arises. Those who have recovered and thrived are those who constantly monitor customer feedback (from multiple sources) and quickly respond, even if that response is nothing more than an acknowledgement and a promise to find out more. Fair or not, the rise in social media has resulted in an environment in which years of carefully developed trust can be shattered in a matter of minutes.

How do you perfect your company’s brand story? How has the digital age changed your story? Share your experiences!